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Friday, 16 December 2011

What to do with Christmas Leftovers - Turkey Soup or Scottish Broth!

When you think about using up the Christmas Leftovers do you think about using the bones and fat of the turkey carcass? To be honest I don't always think about using up every last bit of meat despite thinking of myself as frugal. Using the Turkey carcass to make soup or broth means that you are going to use every last bit of flavour and meat from the leftovers and get some tasty food too! Making Turkey Soup this way was taught to me by my Mum. My Sister and I always called this Scottish Soup even though it was more of a broth as it was only made by the Scottish side of our family (my Mum, her Sisters and our Gran) but it is really simple to make!

Take the turkey Carcass and place it into a saucepan. Don't worry about removing all the meat from the carcass as this point. If there is any of the jellied fat on the plate that the carcass has been on then add that to the pot too! If you weren't making this with leftovers, you could use chicken drumsticks instead of the Turkey carcass.

The rest of the ingredients to be added to the soup are fresh ingredients, I am sure that you already have a glut of fresh products in the kitchen so don't worry about buying extra things. This is all about using what you have! Take an onion, peel it and cut it in to large chunks and add this to the pot along with a couple of peeled and sliced carrots, a cup of peas, a few peeled and quartered potatoes, some Brussels Sprouts and if you have other veg laying about add them in too! I tend to add a chicken stock cube to the soup/broth and pepper (but no salt). You can add any leftover gravy to this mix, but it isn't essential and one thing that I used to love was Pearl Barley but as Daddy can't eat it I don't add it any more. My Mum likes to grate a carrot into the pot to give the soup some colour, but I don't always do this! Cover the carcass and vegetables in hot water and put on to a medium heat to simmer for an hour. You need to keep checking that the pan isn't boiling dry and if it is top it up with water.

After the time is over you need to let the soup/broth to cool down to a temperature you can stand as you need to remove the carcass as you are going to remove the meat from the carcass. A lot of it will have already have fallen off, but you just need to finish it off. As you remove the meat throw it into the soup/broth mix and throw the bones into your compost heap!

Now here comes the time where you need to decide if you are going for a soup or a broth. If it is soup you are after I would at this point use my hand soup blender to make a thick soup. If it is a broth you are after leave it as it is. This will store in the fridge for a week, but you can also freeze it in portions or just eat it straight away.